DEPTFORD TWP. -- While Nicole Ayres will never wear the number 75 for the Deptford Softball Team, for one day ‘Team Justice’ made sure the number got its proper recognition.

At a three-game softball tournament on Saturday, softball players from all over Deptford Township — some who even play on other teams — came together to form ‘Team Justice,’ a collective effort by the Deptford community to influence the verdict against Ayres’s killer, Stephen Headley, and to honor her memory as a former Deptford softball star.

Ayres, a budding softball player from Deptford and pitcher at Fordham University was killed at age 22 two years ago by Headley, now 30, after an argument in Burlington County led to Headley stabbing Ayres multiple times. Ayres’s body was found later on an athletic field in Southampton.

While the three game tournament, consisting of ‘Team Justice’ playing against the West Deptford Storm and the Washington Township Wildcats and one game between the Storm and the Wildcats, was busy keeping Ayres’s memory alive, many members of the community have started a petition asking for Headley to spend his life in prison.

Currently, prosecutors are expected to ask for a life sentence, but it’s possible the judge will sentence Headley to 30 years in prison without parole.

Headley has spent the last two years in prison since his arrest in 2010, making him eligible to get out of prison at 58-years-old if he gets the 30-year sentence, which Superior Court Judge James W. Palmer Jr. said he is likely to give Headley.

For Ayres’s cousin, Kellie Lando, and other members of the community, the possibility of Headley walking out of prison is “incomprehensible.”

“It’s hard to lose someone, especially when you feel like the state is not taking it seriously enough,” said Lando of Ayres’s murder.

“To me, our first responsibility is to our children,” added Lando.

Lando says she currently has about 5,200 signatures on her petition asking the court to serve Headley a life sentence behind bars.

“Nicole got life and our family got life. He’s getting 30 years,” said Lando.

Maria Lucas, whose husband, Roy, worked to set up the event, remembers bringing her daughter Claire to some of Ayres’s softball games when she was younger. To her, keeping the Ayres’s legacy in Deptford alive as important as Headley’s upcoming sentencing.

“We don’t want anyone to forget her. She was just a well-rounded person,” said Lucas of Ayres.

“The community has been wonderful. It’s actually overwhelming,” Lucas added, of the community’s involvement.

Her daughter, Claire, currently plays softball for Washington Township, but played for Team Justice for this one occasion.

To her, like many of those in community, the possibility of Headley walking out of prison one day is unacceptable and Claire is a strong believer of the “eye for an eye” idealism. She added that “if we were in Texas, we would be seeking the death penalty.”

But as she and her mother reflected on what it was like to go to some of Ayres’ games when she was younger, she remembered what Ayres’ legacy had on her, personally.

“I always wanted to be like her because she was a well-rounded athlete,” said Claire.

All of the proceeds of the event will go to both a scholarship fund in honor of Ayres and toward the Deptford softball team.